On December 3, 1967, Christiaan Barnard performed the first human-to-human heart transplant and by the following day Cape Town, South Africa.

The journalists and photographers, who crammed into Groote Schuur hospital, had little reason to notice a figure in a white coat that was forced to stand in the shadows. Had they asked, they would have been told that Hamilton Naki was a cleaner and gardener who washed floors and swept leaves.